I think there were some serious doubts on whether there was any real religious fervor, as everyone involved had some kind of perfectly worldly stake in this.
Definitely. While I haven't done the kind of research you seem to have done, I feel pretty confident in guessing that at least one victim died as a result of, say, adultery coupled with a reputation to uphold.
That said, being a horror game, I fail to see why having horror elements in it is a big deal. Especially seeing as this game seems to be set well before the time of the Witch Trials, and the monsters are real.
Well, I'm not howling for the developers' blood or anything. Best of luck to them, and I hope they sell 10[sup]42[/sup] copies. I'm just put off by witch-burning portrayed as an unambiguously good thing, the same mild "Eh, it's not for me" put-offness I feel about Frank Miller and his World O' Whores.
And maybe I should re-read the article more carefully, but aside from some monsters out in the deep wilderness, I didn't really get a horror vibe from this. More Minecraft than Lovecraft, if you will.
One other thing: Do we know if you can be killed offline any time, or does it have to be one of those "summoned via your murder-taint" situations?
Sounds like a very interesting niche premise, I wish them all the best. Will even give it a whirl, as it's free to play. Sounds like it shares a few aspects with Minecraft, whilst building a closer community. Could be interesting to see if that will work in the anonymous internet environment...
It scares of the retarded "Hardcore" PvP crowd that want to be dickholes without any repurcussions. I thinks its fair that you should have to stay online for the time until the murder scent goes away so you cant just go and kill someone, then log off and wait for it to go away.
Sounds like a lot of people are freaking over being killed while offline.
From the article, I think you can only be killed offline if you murder someone, not for some petty crime or any other reason. So as long as you're not murdering, you're safe, which sounds like a great idea to me.
One fluid they missed is probably semen. More semen makes you more of a man, meaning more testosterone. You lose semen after you have sex. Makes sense?
They have to solve how to prevent someone from doing cheap kills, looking for easy kills. They need adequate protection for the people that have played for a long time. Those are the loyal customers, if they die because of a bunch of low level guys teaming up on him just for fun, then that's a game breaker.
Since murder, and other crimes, can be tracked I'm suspecting there will be plenty of players simply wandering around as bounty hunters and make their living by subduing criminals and bringing them in for reward. If unconscious characters can't do anything for a while that means they can be dragged in and dealt with without the bounty hunter acquiring a scent of their own.
As Murder is a skill, griefers have to invest time into killing someone and then try to actually make good on their escape so I doubt there will be many public killings since the griefer's death will cost them time.
I'm also assuming if your character is summoned while offline they can defend themselves but at a reduced capability and additionally that there will be positive things that witchcraft can do such as healing though that might make other players lynch you at the first sign of black magic.
Does anyone else have the idea of finding a spot in the woods building your own little shack, specializing in murder and then going to neighboring towns and killing off entire villages
[q
Perhaps. But there's also a lot of evidence to suggest some 'witches' were just very knowledgeable.
There's some issues in the UK surrounding the rising to prominence of modern surgical medicine and the wholesale discrediting of the old traditional healers, many of whom were women.
But that's not to say there weren't horrible rituals in old religions. (but newer ones don't have such a brilliant history either. - Consider the inquisitions; a lot of people convicted of witchcraft, heresy and so forth were tortured into confessing.)
But I digress.
I don't quite know what this game is intending with it's representation of Witchcraft - I personally don't see the point of mystical/magical abilities that can only be used for 100% negative purposes.
Kind of sucks all the fun out of it for me. But whatever. XD.
To each their own about games, but I think you have some bad information. This is why I don't like current political agendas leading to people reinventing history. The inquisition did not torture people into confessing crimes, that's idiotic and I'm surprised people have gotten that idea. It's simply put stupid. By the time people were tortured they had already been convicted of Witchcraft, their death was a foregone conclusion. By the time things had gotten to this point typically the authorities had already sat in judgement and reviewed the evidence and the witnesses. Understand that in europe where most of this took place a trial did not need to be conducted with a person being able to actively defend themselves, nor did they have the right to face their accuser or anything else. That is why these rights exist, there still were proceedings however. What happened when someone was convicted of Witchcraft was the church felt it was their duty to try and save the person's soul. The torture was conducted to get them to accept their misdeeds as misdeeds, repent their evil, and accept Jesus as their savior so they could go to heaven. None of this was really used as evidence or anything like that. In cases of posession it was believed that the demon needed to be driven out of the body through pain, so the person inside could confess their sins, and thus go to heaven. Wonky yes, but not quite what you seem to think. It makes me suspect that instead of schools telling you "put bad horror movies about the Inquisition out of your mind, this is what really happened, which is scary enough" and decided to try and present the bad horror movies as what actually occured.
As far as those accused of being witches simply having knowlege, I think that's a retroactive justification. After all it's a way for the New Age version of a witch to claim ancient traditions, and provide an air of mystique and secrecy to the whole thing. "Secrets the world feared because they didn't understand them" or whatever. The problem with that logic is that The Church was actually the big defender of knowlege at the time, and the force which moved science along in the early days. Herbalism and the like was not exactly an alien concept to The Church as a whole.
It's also important to understand that current conflicts between herbal cures and modern medicine are because herbal medicine is largely unregulated and tends to cause as many problems as it solves. Modern medication and such gradually evolved from herbal remedies
and such, and in general given the option seeing a doctor is going to be far more effective than seeing a Guru. This is not to say that herbal cures are ineffective, but in some cases they can cause complications, or by treating symptoms never get to an underlying cause until it's too late. Right now there is so much negative-press aimed at the drug companies where a lot of people will look for "alternative medicine" in the belief that there is some great conspiricy to prevent people from using this stuff so big drug companies can make money. In reality if anything like that was going on, you'd have the big companies buying out the herb gardens and stuff and selling the herbal remedies for $100 a bottle or whatever.
-
As far as Witchcraft having to be used for 100% negative purposes, it's a solid concept. The idea of Lovecraftian type horror is the insignifigance of people compared to the supernatural horrors out there. All magic by definition comes FROM those creatures and as such it taints the people who use it. This is why sorcerors in that style of horror ALWAYS come to a bad end, either becoming evil, turning into degenerate mutant creatures through the energy they channel, or having their minds shatter and going totally bonkers. You see this kind of thing in the concept of "Chaos" as it applies to say Warhammer 40k, where those who use Sorcery do so through the Ruinous powers. The thing is that in an even darker universe there is no flickering remnant of a psionic god's soul, or naturally occuring psionics who can resist taint with the right training. That's part of what makes this kind of concept horrific as opposed to just dark... we're totally irrelevent due to the way it defines the universe.
That said, if they are going with a system based on the beliefs of the time in a literal sense, then there are only going to be two powers, God and The Devil, anything not from God comes from The Devil, and thus any power Witches wield is inherantly evil and corrupt. They probably would have to go through a sort of "sign this contract" type faustian bargain to get power. As I understand things, I'd imagine they are making it a high level thing because your character has to prove themself worth the trouble to begin with.
The flip side of that would of course be the power of god, which would be wielded by the faithful. Probably involving the invocation of various saints for blessings (think of the old game "Darklands"), mystical dispelling, and similar feats. Belief wise it wouldn't do any of the more dramatic D&D Cleric stuff. I'd imagine in this kind of system a Witch would be really powerful, but would have to remain in hiding because someone with a lot of faith like a Priest or whatever would be able to ignore whatever they have and take them down rather easily (meaning such characters would have to be subtle and remain hidden, since if the player base as a whole ever finds out, perma-death awaits). At the high end a character like this might wield an artifact involving a piece of the true cross, or the fingerbone of a saint or whatever.
That's getting well off the subject though, it sounds interesting, but I'm not sure if I'll have time for it. Also, I admit I don't much care for the whole perma-death thing. If I was going to implement it I would probably look at old school "Star Wars Galaxies" for an inspiration. The way it sounds Witches are going to be really powerful, and that makes a degree of sense. Using Permadeath in that case would be a way of keeping them in hiding where they should be conceptually. In old school SWG when Jedi or Sith died (after all the work to become one) the character turned into a "glowie" (think Obi-Wan appearing in the movies) and could no longer do anything. You could pretty much just log it in and walk around to show "hey, I actually got a character up to Jedi!". For a while it pretty much ensured that the force users were hiding like they were supposed to be. Later when they got rid of that mechanic you'd have bored Force Users waltz into a busy Cantina and start break dancing until Bounty Hunters showed up, then there would be a big fight, everyone would die, and then go laugh at the infirmiry. Then came the entire rehaul of the game and it just got worse.
couple of Questions though. do you get a murder scent from killing a native indian and is that distinguishable from killing a villager (as it would be very different at the time this is set). Also interested to see how the villages will rule themselves and how easy it could be to change villages (inter village warfare)
On that note of towns governing themselves, he mentioned that you set "crime permissions" on ur settled villages which could lead to some cool stuff like creating a town in which theft was legal so there'd be lawless towns "a days ride south of here"
murphy7801 said:
Rich history well for America I suppose couldn't game developers look little farther field to other places with history even if use an American main character there's whole world out there.
This sounds interesting enough, not sure how I feel about being able to be killed while offline, seems a bit unfair no?
Also, strange fact, my great great great (etc.) grandfather is apparently Roger Conant, the founder of Salem. My family only figured this out because one of my cousins took a trip to Salem, and noticed that the statue in town is the spitting image of my father, so they did a family tree trace and figured out that he's in our lineage
I never liked WoW and its clones because they always felt like walled off sandboxes where everything you did was limited or even predetermined. I can't wait to play this game.
Part of my avoidance of anything with the words "Massively" and "Multiplayer" associated with them is mainly to do with the fact that I'd have to put up with whatever assholes happen to be playing in my general vicinity on the server at the same time. This sounds niche enough to deter the worst of said undesirables, and the mechanics seem tailor-made to encourage people to be civil. It certainly sounds interesting, so I'll keep an eye on it.
However, I wonder what kind of release schedule to expect. It's a part of history that's very much exclusive to America (not necessarily witch-burnings, but the time-period, location, what it actually means to contemporary culture, etc) and it's likely it won't see much of an international release. Even if it were to be available in some form in somewhere like Australia, I'm thinking Oceanic servers aren't an immediate concern for the devs. Shame, becuase it sounds genuinely interesting.
Now this sounds intresting. But why do I feel likes it's gonna look like runescape( I know but i just get that picture in my head ^^). But it's great that it's gonna be free to play. I will try this game when its realeases. Hope it's coming for Mac( yeah I know Iknow...but it's the best computer I got right now. Our old PC is heading for retierment.)
Sounds interesting, if it weren't for the "summon and execute (not fight, but execute) you while you're logged off thing, which together with permanent death, is the worst Idea in the history of everything.
[q
Perhaps. But there's also a lot of evidence to suggest some 'witches' were just very knowledgeable.
There's some issues in the UK surrounding the rising to prominence of modern surgical medicine and the wholesale discrediting of the old traditional healers, many of whom were women.
But that's not to say there weren't horrible rituals in old religions. (but newer ones don't have such a brilliant history either. - Consider the inquisitions; a lot of people convicted of witchcraft, heresy and so forth were tortured into confessing.)
But I digress.
I don't quite know what this game is intending with it's representation of Witchcraft - I personally don't see the point of mystical/magical abilities that can only be used for 100% negative purposes.
Kind of sucks all the fun out of it for me. But whatever. XD.
To each their own about games, but I think you have some bad information. This is why I don't like current political agendas leading to people reinventing history. The inquisition did not torture people into confessing crimes, that's idiotic and I'm surprised people have gotten that idea. It's simply put stupid. By the time people were tortured they had already been convicted of Witchcraft, their death was a foregone conclusion. By the time things had gotten to this point typically the authorities had already sat in judgement and reviewed the evidence and the witnesses. Understand that in europe where most of this took place a trial did not need to be conducted with a person being able to actively defend themselves, nor did they have the right to face their accuser or anything else. That is why these rights exist, there still were proceedings however. What happened when someone was convicted of Witchcraft was the church felt it was their duty to try and save the person's soul. The torture was conducted to get them to accept their misdeeds as misdeeds, repent their evil, and accept Jesus as their savior so they could go to heaven. None of this was really used as evidence or anything like that. In cases of posession it was believed that the demon needed to be driven out of the body through pain, so the person inside could confess their sins, and thus go to heaven. Wonky yes, but not quite what you seem to think. It makes me suspect that instead of schools telling you "put bad horror movies about the Inquisition out of your mind, this is what really happened, which is scary enough" and decided to try and present the bad horror movies as what actually occured.
As far as those accused of being witches simply having knowlege, I think that's a retroactive justification. After all it's a way for the New Age version of a witch to claim ancient traditions, and provide an air of mystique and secrecy to the whole thing. "Secrets the world feared because they didn't understand them" or whatever. The problem with that logic is that The Church was actually the big defender of knowlege at the time, and the force which moved science along in the early days. Herbalism and the like was not exactly an alien concept to The Church as a whole.
It's also important to understand that current conflicts between herbal cures and modern medicine are because herbal medicine is largely unregulated and tends to cause as many problems as it solves. Modern medication and such gradually evolved from herbal remedies
and such, and in general given the option seeing a doctor is going to be far more effective than seeing a Guru. This is not to say that herbal cures are ineffective, but in some cases they can cause complications, or by treating symptoms never get to an underlying cause until it's too late. Right now there is so much negative-press aimed at the drug companies where a lot of people will look for "alternative medicine" in the belief that there is some great conspiricy to prevent people from using this stuff so big drug companies can make money. In reality if anything like that was going on, you'd have the big companies buying out the herb gardens and stuff and selling the herbal remedies for $100 a bottle or whatever.
-
As far as Witchcraft having to be used for 100% negative purposes, it's a solid concept. The idea of Lovecraftian type horror is the insignifigance of people compared to the supernatural horrors out there. All magic by definition comes FROM those creatures and as such it taints the people who use it. This is why sorcerors in that style of horror ALWAYS come to a bad end, either becoming evil, turning into degenerate mutant creatures through the energy they channel, or having their minds shatter and going totally bonkers. You see this kind of thing in the concept of "Chaos" as it applies to say Warhammer 40k, where those who use Sorcery do so through the Ruinous powers. The thing is that in an even darker universe there is no flickering remnant of a psionic god's soul, or naturally occuring psionics who can resist taint with the right training. That's part of what makes this kind of concept horrific as opposed to just dark... we're totally irrelevent due to the way it defines the universe.
That said, if they are going with a system based on the beliefs of the time in a literal sense, then there are only going to be two powers, God and The Devil, anything not from God comes from The Devil, and thus any power Witches wield is inherantly evil and corrupt. They probably would have to go through a sort of "sign this contract" type faustian bargain to get power. As I understand things, I'd imagine they are making it a high level thing because your character has to prove themself worth the trouble to begin with.
The flip side of that would of course be the power of god, which would be wielded by the faithful. Probably involving the invocation of various saints for blessings (think of the old game "Darklands"), mystical dispelling, and similar feats. Belief wise it wouldn't do any of the more dramatic D&D Cleric stuff. I'd imagine in this kind of system a Witch would be really powerful, but would have to remain in hiding because someone with a lot of faith like a Priest or whatever would be able to ignore whatever they have and take them down rather easily (meaning such characters would have to be subtle and remain hidden, since if the player base as a whole ever finds out, perma-death awaits). At the high end a character like this might wield an artifact involving a piece of the true cross, or the fingerbone of a saint or whatever.
That's getting well off the subject though, it sounds interesting, but I'm not sure if I'll have time for it. Also, I admit I don't much care for the whole perma-death thing. If I was going to implement it I would probably look at old school "Star Wars Galaxies" for an inspiration. The way it sounds Witches are going to be really powerful, and that makes a degree of sense. Using Permadeath in that case would be a way of keeping them in hiding where they should be conceptually. In old school SWG when Jedi or Sith died (after all the work to become one) the character turned into a "glowie" (think Obi-Wan appearing in the movies) and could no longer do anything. You could pretty much just log it in and walk around to show "hey, I actually got a character up to Jedi!". For a while it pretty much ensured that the force users were hiding like they were supposed to be. Later when they got rid of that mechanic you'd have bored Force Users waltz into a busy Cantina and start break dancing until Bounty Hunters showed up, then there would be a big fight, everyone would die, and then go laugh at the infirmiry. Then came the entire rehaul of the game and it just got worse.
You need to be careful about what is and isn't historically accurate, since the old rule 'history is written by the victors' is in effect.
I personally won't go any further into the inquisition, since I don't know all that much about it, but the early history of modern medicine is very dubious indeed, and there were definitely massive conflicts between traditional healers, who were often from poor backgrounds, and surgeons, who quite often were not.
The medical journal known as 'the lancet' came into existence because a lot of surgeons did not attain their position through being skilled, but primarily from being family of the right person.
This has little to do with drugs vs herbalism, but the older conflict between surgical cures VS more traditional ones.
If you're going to argue about revisionist history by certain groups, make sure you also understand the history of what is now the mainstream.
As for the Christian church... (Well, that's a bit misleading, since there's more than one), there is a lot of conflicting evidence about it's history.
It doesn't help that most historians wanting to study religious history have usually been required to be religious themselves, which introduces some interesting biases.
Amongst conflicting reports is one which suggests Jesus never existed at all, and was an allegorical construct. (Yet mainstream historians often go looking for Jesus with the pre-concieved notion that it was an actual person. - IF you assume a particular starting point, you're much more likely to 'find' evidence.)
Other stories suggest the Roman Catholic church violently suppressed and destroyed the traditional Roman religions when it became the official state religion.
There's plenty more.
The problem is, history isn't an all or nothing affair in regards to truth. History is pieced together from clues, like a big puzzle.
And if those clues include such things as old books and parchments (which they frequently do), you run into the bias of who wrote them.
Consider the Surgeons VS traditional healers?
Who do you think wrote the history here?
Surgeons were from wealthy backgrounds, and quite likely to be literate, and what's more, the current medical community is descended from their traditions.
Traditional healers have all but dissapeared, taking their knowledge with them. - People practicing these things today probably don't even have any real connection to what these people knew, and are just doing their own reconstruction from what little they can find.
Of course they're not going to acknowledge the horrors of what the people they are imitating were doing.
They probably didn't even know about them.
But... The mainstream groups are no less trustworthy, and no less likely to have been covering up what they considered horrible.
(Were you aware how many churches had phallic and sexual imagery in their architecture? Did you know how much of this was intentionally destroyed by the Victorians because it conflicted with their views on the morality of sex? - It might seem like a minor thing, but it shows a group trying to deny the past history of their own religion, and doing things which erase a lot of evidence in the process - Leading future generations to having a different view of such groups)
Anyway... History is never more than an approximation of what really went on.
And be wary of who is giving you your 'facts'.
couple of Questions though. do you get a murder scent from killing a native indian and is that distinguishable from killing a villager (as it would be very different at the time this is set). Also interested to see how the villages will rule themselves and how easy it could be to change villages (inter village warfare)
On that note of towns governing themselves, he mentioned that you set "crime permissions" on ur settled villages which could lead to some cool stuff like creating a town in which theft was legal so there'd be lawless towns "a days ride south of here"
murphy7801 said:
Rich history well for America I suppose couldn't game developers look little farther field to other places with history even if use an American main character there's whole world out there.
That very valid point this was more of general rant less directed at this topic. Though will they portray them as colonial British citizens of that era though ?
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